


It’s Just a Game

by KrystalMoon



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-19 14:50:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22479478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrystalMoon/pseuds/KrystalMoon
Summary: Taking inspiration from Overlord, this story is about the misadventures of a group of friends who get stuck in Skyrim as their characters.Set in a very near future when nanobyte technology becomes infused with video gaming, Bethesda’s re-re-re-release of their more popular Elder Scrolls title upon realizing Elder Scrolls VI was not as big of a hit as they wanted. Black-market products are necessary to mod the new Skyrim.Rated “M” for blood/violence and other related sensitive topics that may not be appropriate for younger audiences.
Kudos: 3





	It’s Just a Game

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a serious work, and will be considered a spin-off of the main fan-fiction I am currently developing using the same characters. More or less, this is a kind of “test run” for the main story I am working on.

* * *

**Prologue**

* * *

Video games have been the biggest focus these past few decades. Between pollution and war, the media reporting suicides and mass shootings nearly daily now, the real world was unpleasant. For this reason, entertainment that was able to distract from reality was a huge focus now-a-days. Movies and sports just wouldn’t cut it anymore, so the focus changed to video games almost purely.

The video game industry released a special virtual reality console years ago, and since then, companies have been striving to perfect this experience. At first it started with headsets and clunky remotes you had to hold in both hands to capture your head and hand movements and four cameras strategically placed in your room to keep you from walking into your walls by limiting your action space to that area. But now, the console and everything was simply a headband that fit to your head. No wires. No extensions. It didn’t even cover the eyes or ears. It wrapped around the head and remotely accessed nanobytes in the body to provide a seamless immersion by placing the consciousness into the game itself.

This kind of immersive experience is exactly the kind of distraction people needed now, so naturally it became very popular. A lot of video games got remade, some badly, some actually very well. One such game that got remade was Skyrim. But that wasn’t surprising to anyone.

Bethesda had released Elder Scrolls V initially in 2011. It’s open world, beautiful setting, and Dungeons and Dragons approach was quite appealing to many. There were a few games that came after, in an attempt to capture the popularity of this game, such as an MMO, and a Elder Scrolls VI, but neither were quite as popular. Skyrim would get re-released several times before it finally was completely remade from the ground up just for this new console.

At first, fans of the original were against it, as this new version was not as friendly to mods due to the state of the console itself. The whole reason Skyrim was as popular as it had been for so long was due entirely to it’s modding community. Had there been no mods, the replayability of the game was pretty low. Not badly so, but it wouldn’t hold a candle to how it is now, certainly.

This new Skyrim, however, fixed a lot of issues and bugs the game had originally. And the realism was insane. The console was very powerful so the entire game was loaded at its maximum all the time with no lagging or other latency issues. It’s draw distance was as far as the eye could see. It looked very pretty.

But downfall here was that it was still limited to a single-player experience. Bethesda did not want to take any fire away from it’s MMO, which was also re-released onto this console, which had all of Tamriel, not just Skyrim. So in order to finally have multiplayer in Skyrim, special black-market modded consoles were released to allow players to have access to user-made mods like the multiplayer servers.

The multiplayer mod was well made. It allowed for servers of up to eight people, either locked to access from your friends list or open for anyone to join. Additionally, there was little threat of griefing outside random PKers (player killers). The downside to the multiplayer mod was that no big guild quests or story quests could be completed. This was mainly due to limitations of the game being meant solely for one player only. The limitations of eight people per server were in place due to the number of player homes, though there had been talk of an extension of this upon implementation of other user-made mods that included more player homes.

Naturally, black-market consoles were not supported by the company that had originally made them, so they came with their own risks. Nor were they considered “legal” to the gaming companies. Bethesda caught wind of the multiplayer mod for Skyrim and sent a cease-and-desist.

Bethesda used to be a “live and let live” sort of user-friendly company, but lately they’ve become money-hoarding executives pushing for profit off of their MMO which had most of their focus lately. This multiplayer mod for Skyrim was hurting the popularity for the MMO, as it was far more annoyingly limited to make the game “fair” by introducing a DPS system. Skyrim’s combat was not limited to cool downs, only the amount of mana points and potions that could be consumed. To be fair, this would be highly unfair in a competitive multiplayer game, but still. It wasn’t hurting anyone. It wouldn’t have seemed so suspicious had Bethesda sent a cease-and-desist right away, but it seemed as though they allowed it to continue while it was popular up until they re-released their MMO a few months later. A few days after the MMO went live on the console, that is when they chose to act legally.

Not willing to fight with a corporation, Skyrim’s multiplayer mod admins sent a servers-wide message of an official shut-off date later that week. This was followed by much community backlash, as a lot of fans of the mod became very agitated at the lack of push-back from the mod authors. But as they tweeted out, what chance does a handful of people who made a non-profit mod have against a corporation that would have a good lawyer at hand? Plus, being life-time fans of Bethesda, they didn’t wish to anger them.

Many players wished to see the multiplayer function out to it’s very end. But what they didn’t know was that the black-market headsets had removed safety features to make room for the modded features. What happened next would produce an unexpected consequence and a little bit of chaos. This is where our story begins…


End file.
